Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is traveling to the United States on September 21 to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting.
Since February, when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to power, Rahman has visited Malaysia and China. This is his third international visit as prime minister.
Meanwhile, he didn’t join the BRICS summit in New Delhi. Officials said that Rahman was invited as BIMSTEC chair, not as prime minister of Bangladesh. As a result, he avoided the BRICS event.
U.S. President Donald Trump praised Rahman recently and thanked him for buying 25 Boeing aircraft. “Boeing will not let you down, and I will not forget,” Trump wrote in an August 31 letter to the prime minister. He also said he looked forward to meeting Rahman.
What is Rahman likely to achieve from his U.S. visit? Can he meet President Trump like he met Chinese President Xi Jinping? Officials are discussing a possible Trump meeting. The visit also gives Rahman a chance to seek U.S. investment and better trade terms following his talks in Beijing.
Bangladesh exported $7.74 billion in ready-made garments to the United States in FY 2025–26. This compares to the $1.3 billion of Bangladeshi goods that China imported across all categories in calendar year 2025. Although the figures cover different periods and product categories, they illustrate the importance of American buyers to Bangladesh.
Chinese loans and investment can help Bangladesh expand its industries and infrastructure, but China cannot replace the U.S. as a major export market. Beijing’s economic interests in Bangladesh also include Belt and Road Initiative projects and opportunities for Chinese companies.
Rahman has already outlined how China fits into his plans. At an investment forum in Beijing on June 25, he invited Chinese manufacturers to establish operations in Bangladesh and use the country to serve overseas markets. He also announced plans for an investment office in China. He pointed to Bangladesh’s suitability for production of goods for foreign buyers.
Rahman’s China visit also brought commitments on the Chinese economic zone in the port city of Chittagong, the modernization of Mongla port and work on the Teesta megaproject.
China and Bangladesh also agreed to hold strategic talks and explore a “2+2” dialogue, bringing together foreign and defense ministry officials. They also agreed to expand military exchanges, visits, and training.
Rahman is trying to deepen economic ties with both Washington and Beijing. The challenge is that some of the terms attached to closer cooperation with one could limit how far Bangladesh can go with the other.
The reciprocal trade agreement signed on February 9 gives Rahman a problem to address. Signed by the interim government just three days before the general election that brought Rahman’s BNP to power, it drew objections over both its terms and its timing. In April, independent parliamentarian Rumeen Farhana demanded parliamentary scrutiny, arguing that the decision should have waited for an elected government.
The February agreement reduced the U.S. reciprocal tariff on Bangladeshi goods from 20 to 19 percent. It also created a mechanism under which a specified volume of Bangladeshi garments made using U.S. cotton or man-made fiber could be exempted from the reciprocal tariff, although regular import duties could still apply.
In return, Bangladesh committed to facilitating about $15 billion in U.S. energy purchases over 15 years and an estimated $3.5 billion in agricultural purchases. The agricultural commitments include at least 700,000 tons of wheat annually for five years, at least $1.25 billion or 2.6 million tons of soy and soy products over one year, as well as purchases of U.S. cotton.
The February agreement could also complicate Bangladesh’s ties with China. It says that Washington could end the trade deal if Bangladesh signed an agreement giving special trade benefits to a “non-market country,” a term understood to include China. This does not ban Chinese investment in Bangladesh. But it could leave Rahman facing a difficult choice: pursue a trade agreement with Beijing and risk losing the benefits offered by the U.S.
Commerce Minister Khandakar Abdul Muktadir said in March that problematic provisions could be amended through further negotiation. Rahman could raise these concerns during his U.S. visit: clarify exporters’ benefits, seek flexibility over purchase commitments and establish what the China-related conditions would mean in practice. Renegotiation has not been confirmed as an item on the agenda of Rahman’s visit, but securing agreement to review these questions would give him something substantive to take home.
There is also an investment agenda for Rahman to pursue. During his July 30-August 1 visit to Bangladesh, U.S. Special Envoy for South and Central Asia Sergio Gor discussed expanding investment through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. He also told Rahman that American investors were interested in organizing a U.S. investor summit in Bangladesh and that he was working to facilitate it.
Gor separately offered to help resume U.S. Food and Drug Administration testing activities in Bangladesh. This is more directly a trade and market-access issue than an investment initiative, particularly for pharmaceutical and other FDA-regulated exports seeking access to the U.S. market.
The investment discussions were followed by a visit from a large U.S.-Bangladesh Business Council delegation in August. AmCham Bangladesh also told Rahman that it wanted to help mobilize another $5 billion in American investment over five years. Commerce Minister Khandakar Abdul Muktadir reiterated that target on September 12, saying the government and AmCham would work together to attract the investment.
Gor also proposed Bangladesh’s future participation in Pax Silica, the U.S.-led initiative covering artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and critical mineral supply chains. That gives Rahman something specific to explore beyond garments and aircraft purchases.
Washington’s interest in Bangladesh’s cooperation with China is mainly with regard to defense. In February, the then-U.S. Ambassador to Dhaka Brent Christensen told Reuters that the U.S. intended to offer Bangladesh American and allied military systems as alternatives to Chinese equipment.
However, by June, Dhaka and Beijing had agreed to explore a dialogue bringing together their foreign and defense establishments. Rahman therefore approaches American security discussions with an expanding Chinese relationship already underway.
Bangladeshi leaders have long used U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) visits to engage Washington. In 1974, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman met U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in New York before traveling to Washington for talks with President Gerald Ford, helping build relations with the U.S. that had soured substantially during the 1971 Liberation War. Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia also met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her 2005 UNGA visit, although available reporting does not establish a major economic agreement resulting from that meeting.
Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s experience showed both the opportunities and limits of these encounters. In 2017, she briefly raised the Rohingya crisis with Trump but afterwards said she didn’t expect help from him on the refugee issue, citing his administration’s restrictive stance on accepting refugees. Washington announced nearly $32 million in additional humanitarian assistance that week, though it cannot be attributed directly to their conversation.
More recently, Muhammad Yunus, who attended the UNGA meeting as chief adviser of the interim administration in September 2024, secured explicit U.S. support for his government during the bilateral meeting with President Biden. His immediate gain was political backing during a difficult transition.
Rahman has already met Xi in Beijing. A meeting with Trump would give him another achievement on the foreign front that he can point to at home. It could also help him build support for Bangladesh’s trade and investment goals in both countries. A UNGA visit, however, offers no guarantee of presidential access. Progress on the February trade agreement, particularly its implications for cooperation with China, or firm investment commitments could still make the trip worthwhile.
Without a meeting with Trump or clear economic gains, Rahman’s U.S. visit could end up being less successful than his trip to Beijing.